


The Body in the Library

by Jay Trent (Bluewolf458)



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Gen, Set pre-series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 13:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Jay%20Trent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a body on the library floor...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Body in the Library

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the prompt 'pool'

The body on the library floor lay in a pool of moonlight.

The pale light leached all the colour from the drying blood on the carpet under the head of the corpse; blood that to an observer would have shown only as a slightly darker stain on the moon-washed floor.

But there was no observer present to register either the body or the bloodstain. The killer was long gone, having fled the scene in fear that the sound of the gunshot, echoing from the high ceiling, would attract attention, pausing only long enough to switch off the lights in the main library as he went, knowing that if they were left on an alarm would be raised fairly quickly.

The killer had not expected the echo.

***

The shot had not, in fact, attracted any attention.

The library was surrounded by factory and office buildings, and all were empty long before the library closed for the night; the last borrowers gone five minutes before the staff, anxious to get home, hurried out, leaving only the caretaker to lock up before he, too, headed away from the place, his target the dingy bed-sit where he had lived for the last two years since the injury that forced him to retire had also forced him to change and simplify his entire life style, forced him to take a lowly, fairly poorly paid, caretaking job to augment the pittance of a disability pension that he received. So many jobs were closed to a man whose mobility was just a trifle restricted.

Who would have expected anyone to break into an ordinary branch library?

Nobody.

Not even the ex-cop whose twenty-some years of service had left him with an ingrained suspicious nature.

The only money in the place was a couple of quid in the coffee kitty. The resale value of the books, second-hand, was minimal, for there were none that were rare and therefore intrinsically valuable; the city's few valuable books were kept carefully secure in the reference library.

The computer was linked to the library network and anyone buying it 'off the back of a lorry' would have to spend a lot on software before being able to use it - and it would have been obvious to anyone seeing it where it had come from, for the name of the branch was scratched deep into the plastic casing.

And so the caretaker, checking that everything that should be switched off had been switched off, was taken completely by surprise by the intruder. And now he lay in a pool of drying blood in the pool of moonlight that was slowly moving across the floor and would soon leave him lying in darkness.

***

In the morning, the cleaners arrived but were unable to gain access to the building; although the padlock that provided extra security was not in place, the door itself was locked. There was a public phone just outside the building; one of the cleaners, a woman with a bossy streak, phoned the caretaker's home, and got no answer.

"He must be on his way," she commented. "Maybe he got held up somewhere. Though it's odd that the padlock's off"

And so they waited. And waited.

After a while, the bossy cleaner sighed and went back to the phone box. She checked her address book for the appropriate number, and phoned the head librarian.

"Hello, sir - sorry to bother you at this time in the morning, but there's no sign of Mr Mechan and the cleaners can't get in... Yes, I phoned his house and got no answer - about half an hour ago. We thought he was on his way, but we've given him long enough to get here, even if he'd left just before I phoned. Yes... yes... thank you, sir."

She rejoined the other two cleaners. "Mr Pierson'll be here as soon as possible," she said.

***

On his arrival, Pierson frowned over the missing padlock before unlocking the door. He went quickly to the small cupboard that housed the door alarm, to deactivate it - then frowned again when he realised the alarm had not been set the previous night.

And then one of the cleaners screamed.

Pierson - who had already begun to wonder if Mechan had ever left the previous night - hurried over, as did the other two cleaners, to gaze in horror at the body lying on the bloodstained carpet beside the 'out' desk.

Pierson halted his first, instinctive move towards the body, realising that if he had lain there all night Mechan must be dead, then went quietly to behind the counter and picked up the phone.

He dialled quickly. Nine... nine... nine... "Police," he said.

***

The first copper on the scene, Constable Ray Doyle, stood for a minute looking down at the dead man, shaking his head sadly. He had known Mechan, though only just - Doyle's arrival at the station had been less than a month before Mechan was injured; but he found himself wondering if this might perhaps have been the kindest thing to happen to the ex-cop. Everyone at the station knew how bitter Mechan had been over his enforced retirement.

He looked back at Pierson. "Anything here worth pinching?" he asked.

"At most a handful of small change in the staffroom and two or three pounds taken in fines for the late return of books," Pierson said. "I checked after I phoned - the cash is still all there."

Doyle grunted. "Yet someone clearly hid in here last night when the place closed, expecting to be able to get something. He could have moved, thinking everyone was already out of the building, and been surprised when Mechan walked in on him - "

Pierson shook his head. "The last thing Mechan did was put out the lights, then set the alarm before leaving the building. That was his routine. If he surprised someone in here, the lights would still have been on."

Doyle was coming to the unhappy conclusion that it had been personal; the intruder had been there in order to kill Mechan.

In twenty years Mechan had undoubtedly made quite a few enemies. Discovering which one had been responsible for offing Mechan would be far from easy. But that would be a job for the detectives.

Doyle sighed as he turned to welcome the forensics team, glad that he only had to guard the murder scene.

**Author's Note:**

> In some ways this is the beginning of a longer story, except that at this point the detectives would be called in... and it would have become original fiction.


End file.
